I'm half-heartedly watching the American Idol ... Octo-final? Preliminary knockout? Mid-season filler? ... the other day, and it occurs to me ... so you've got about three weeks of preliminary shows, two shows per week, followed by another two weeks of Hollywood tryouts at two shows per week, followed by the first series of voter eliminations to reduce the pool from 24 to 12. At two girls and two boys voted off each week, that'll take three weeks at three shows a week. Then you've got the stretch to the finish, taking 11 weeks and 22 shows to knock it down to the winner. So tallying that up and throwing in the inevitable few "retrospective" weeks and shows, Fox has got American Idol on for 20+ weeks, occupying their prime time slot on a staggering 40+ nights each year. Talk about milking the cash cow.

My fears about Chelsea's dreams of European glory in 2005-2006 were confirmed this afternoon as the team suffered a 2-1 defeat at the hands of Barcelona in the first leg of their Champions League showdown. I knew it was going to be bad when, just before leaving for a lunch meeting at 12:30, i checked the gamecast and saw Asier Del Horno had been issued a straight red card for a clumsy challenge on Argentine teenage phenom Lionel Messi. Whether or not it was deserved, i knew such referee intervention was sure to spark the next round of verbal sparring between the London and Catalan camps, continuing in the tradition of last year's accusations of referee coercion. The last thing i wanted was an excuse for José Mourinho to indulge in his mind games. I was hoping this would be an epic contest between the two current footballing powers of Europe, not a showcase for enormous egos. Hopefully i'm incorrectly forecasting the headlines during the two weeks until the return leg in Spain. We'll need a much better showing (11 people on the pitch for the full 90 minutes would be a good start), and to come up with at least two goals on a hostile pitch. Frankly, i'm not convinced the squad has the heart to do it. All this year i've gotten the impression that the huge expectations and reputation of invincibility has taken away some of the team's unity and passion. Boys, prove me wrong. Please.

Fox Sports World will announce the winner of the "Ultimate Chelsea Fan Sweepstakes" in two days on the 6pm showing of Fox Football Friday. So by 7 o'clock i'll be able to put these silly dreams of a March trip to Stamford Bridge to rest.

I'd forgotten what a lovely, light as air pop song Ivy's "Get Enough" is.

Last night i modified my age-old mp3 library script to run with my new MySQL database, and voila! You can now peruse my iTunes collection from the sounds page. I improved upon the organization, searching, and display from its previous incarnation, and have ideas for further improvements. Anybody want to license the software from me?

A cup of home-brewed coffee with milk and sugar around 9pm does wonders to relax me for the rest of the evening. Until Veronica and i crawl into bed a few hours later and she tells me i smell like a Starbucks dumpster.

I've resolved to apply for a total of 5 grants between now and June. That should be a trial by fire for my new research process manager, who is charged with organizing the submissions. While i was still in Boston, a colleague of mine mentioned that when you're developing methods that will be useful in the study of many different types of cancer, it is helpful from a funding perspective to then submit variations of the same grant to funding agencies dealing with a specific disease site (ie, brain, prostate, breast, etc etc). I never liked that philosophy as i felt it was a kind of cheating, but lately i've realized that in the rough and tumble competition to get funding, it's a perfectly valid approach. So in the next month or two i will giving myself the crash course in ovarian, prostate, and testicular cancer biology in order to determine how i can apply my work to those pathologies. I'm also applying for a brain tumor award, but i like to think i know something about those as i did do five years of research on them. *nose in air*

I've got the emotional stability of Joan Crawford on a bender when it comes to work these days. A compliment will send my confidence skyrocketing, as happened after the program project progress meeting a few weeks ago when i presented my work on the development and installation of a collimator to turn a microCT scanner into a conformal radiotherapy unit. By the same token, an offhand remark that i can even remotely perceive as a criticism of my work sends my morale into the toilet. This has got to stop. When i get a funding base and get some papers published, i think i'll have a bit better confidence base to lean on. I had a great lunch meeting with a collaborator in bioengineering today and her postdoc/husband. She's a junior faculty member at Stanford, having come over from Boston. And she's gone/going through many of the same trials and tribulations that i've gone/going through. It's great to be able to commiserate. Even better, the three of us are planning some novel collaborative work that will hopefully produce interesting results on which to base further research.

I didn't mention that a few weeks ago Veronica and i saw Columbian rock en Español sensation Juanes at the San Jose State Event Center/basketball arena. It was a good enough show, but he is the kind of Spanish language artist that doesn't inspire any interest or curiosity in me whatsoever. It didn't help that at least twice during the show did i tap Veronica on the shoulder and inquire if he hadn't already played this song. I did get a kick out of the pirate t-shirts on sale .... this was the first concert i'd been to in quite a while where i saw the pirate vendors hawking their wares to the line of arriving/departing cars. There was an amusing legit t-shirt playing on Juanes's hit "La Camisa Negra". It was black and simply read "Tengo la camisa negra" ("i have the black shirt"). Clever.

Off this weekend down the 5 to hit Sean's 30th birthday party, featuring the second party bus excursion (the first being Dionne's epic 30th birthday, an evening which ended with a drunken Matthew hopping into bed with me and getting frisky). I'll keep my fingers crossed that i avoid his amorous advances this time. Naomi has graciously agreed to spare Tara the kennel and watch her for the weekend.

Of course i will have to get in a few matches of Winning Eleven 9 with my arch-rival. The learning curve seems to get steeper as i get more experience with the game. I thought i had reached a level of comfort with it, starting an English Premiership season and winning my first four or five matches, including a personal best performance in a 3-nil demolition of Liverpool. Then all of the sudden i went ten matches without scoring. I couldn't even muster a shot on goal each match, let alone slip one past the keeper. Somehow my attack had become completely disjointed and ineffective. After much swearing and even more practice, i've regained a bit of confidence, but still struggle to coordinate my team at both the offensive and defensive ends. For better (and worse), WE9 does well to represent the game of football: it takes thought and imagination to unlock a defense, and when you finally do create a chance you'd better not squander it as they don't come around often. Similarly, your defenders had better not make dumb mistakes because the AI will not fail to punish you for them.

I'm quite looking forward to the Belle & Sebastian and New Pornographers show at the SF Concourse next month, even if 1) it is at that horrible venue, and 2) the gorgeous Neko Case is not touring with NP. I'm digging both of their new albums and have wanted to see the New Pornographers ever since first hearing "Mass Romantic" five years ago. Elsewhere in music, i'm quite taken with the indie pop of the Clientele after hearing "E.M.P.T.Y." on Sirius. I'm in love with my Sirius radio. First Wave, Left of Center, Chill, Howard Stern, and Boombox (except for those awful Grandmaster Flash mash-up sessions) are all fab.

I saw the most entertaining hour of ice skating i've ever seen the other day. It was during the next-to-last night of Olympic ice dancing, and at least half of the contestant couples ate it in some way, shape, or form. The most spectacular fall was a woman who lost her hold on her partner's arm while spinning in the air and flew off, landing smack on her hip. For someone who could care less about the artistry, grace, expression, and gayness of ice skating, this was about as good as it could conceivably get.

As much as i loathed his ego early on, i must say i think Santino is the most interesting character in the finals of Project Runway. Everyone else (including 90% of the self-righteous, whiny losers who showed up for tonight's reunion episode) is a f@$#ing wimp.

I really wish i had more time to play the guitar. Lessons would be sweet.